Vanilla Skies
by Molize
Summary: Set after 2x13. Chuck leaves to Europe after he loose Bass Industries and Blair dismisses him. He needs help with the way his life has become and find help in old friends. Blair's not as done as she said to Chuck and her life is falling into pieces.
1. In the middle of the ocean

**Title**: Vanilla Skies.

**Author:** Molize

**Summary:** Set after 2x15. Chuck leaves to Europe after he loose Bass Industries and Blair dismisses him. He needs help with the way his life has become and find help in old friends. Blair's not as done as she said to Chuck and her life is falling into pieces. Old friends and old enemies sometimes mean the same.

**oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

**Chapter 1. In the middle of the ocean.**

This is how life works. When you think your life couldn't get any worse it shows you what a bitch is.

That was what Chuck thought while lounged in his couch in 1812, scotch in hand. The suite was dark, blinds down in every window and lights turned off. If someone entered, they would think the young Bass was away and that was exactly what he hoped.

He wanted to be alone. Actually, it was something far more complicated that just wanting to be alone. It was difficult to explain.

Things were complicated so hiding was a good solution to avoid them, and hiding alone is less suspicious; but in the other hand, he had spent the last two months alone and thinking-scotch-get drunk was the menu.

Everybody knows everything can get worse; at least it's said in Murphy's Law... but so worse?

Putting in order his recent memories from the last two years in his life was an example of up's and down's.

A boring beginning of junior year. Nate and Serena's secret discovered. Victrola's project. Bart thinks is a bad idea. Nate and Blair break up. Victrola's opening. And amazing ride home. Damned fluttering stomach. Blair wants Nate. Anger. Nate comes to him. Guilt. Nate needs her. More anger. Blair's birthday. The necklace. A secret affair. Nate and Blair as friends. Chuck sees red. Chuck screw up everything. Loose Blair. GG blast. Nate hates him. Blair now comes to him. Too late. Van der Basses. Fine with Lily. Really good with Eric. Really funny with Serena. Bart thinks he's not good for them... as always. Wedding. Things with Nate and Blair get better. Fear. Loosing Blair again. Fighting for her.

At the end, maybe they couldn't say what they felt for each other but they were fine. Things were good even with Bart. High school was ending; new projects were on the horizon.

And then... _Bart's been an accident_.

When you fight for something or someone, you may lose it. It's hard, but that possibility is always in mind.

When you loose someone that you had as granted you simply are lost.

What do you do now? Bart, his father, was someone granted. Maybe his relationship wasn't the best between a father and his son. Sometimes Chuck felt as if he was a temp in Bass Industries, but at least it was something. He had killed her mother, the love of his father's life, so in one way or another he could understand why Bart was like he was.

That night, at the Snowflake Ball, he felt as a murderer.

A murderer, again.

Because of his phone call his father was coming to the ball to talk to Lily, and in that ride he died. It was easy to make connections.

First time, Chuck killed her mother in childbirth.

Second time, he made the call that killed his father.

Two times guilt is too much weight for only a soul.

The guilt made him drown on his own thoughts while people only wanted to get him to the surface.

No one asked what he wanted to do, if he wanted to be alone or in company. In those moments they think that if you say you want to be on your own it's because you're sad and you don't want to be seen like that. Perhaps they are right in some circumstances but Chuck did want to be really alone.

Before Bart's funeral he had spent his time with some boxes full of bottles of scotch. Chuck couldn't live with the feeling he was the cause of his father departure. He needed to find something to lift that weight from his shoulders. Someone. He found it. Somehow. Lily Bass.

Deep down it hurt him, because someway he liked her. Lily was the mother he always lacked.

However his hiding place was not good enough... they could find him, she could find him. Actually they did, _she_ did.

Nate found him at the Palace's bar. Chuck was dressed for the funeral.

Chuck had gone to his room to retrieve some clothes and brought a few suitcases with him to his suit. After Chuck finished, the prospect of burying Bart only made him drink another bottle of scotch. That was the state in which Nate found him.

Nate brought him back to his suit and called Blair. They had been very worried about him since the night at the hospital, Chuck had disappeared. Nate thought it was pointless to call him every fifteen minutes. If he wanted to be alone, let him be. However, Blair didn't agree. She called him thousand times. First, Chuck hanged up, then he just ignored her calls. Her second option was calling Nate another thousand times asking him if he had some idea where Chuck could be.

Blair was right. Leaving Chuck alone had been a bad idea.

When Nate opened the door to her, he was welcomed by an anxious Blair who stormed into the suit asking where was Chuck, how he was, if he was ok... endless questions that finished once she took a look at Chuck sleeping soundly on his bed. At his sight, Blair left the breath she was holding and approached to his resting body as tears threatened to fall down her face. She didn't want to see him in a state like that, but it was thousand times better that than not knowing where he was or if he was ok.

Preparing Chuck to the funeral had been a torture. And feeling he couldn't look to them right into their eyes, her eyes, even worse.

Chuck was dragged from the safety of his suit to the church when he couldn't walk straight a few steps. However when he saw Dan, Chuck reunited the strength to run towards him and punch him in the face, nevertheless they had stopped him.

When he saw Lily his blood just boiled. The power of the mind is indisputable, he wanted to blame someone else and he did.

When Chuck saw Lily his mind sent him a picture of Lily with a gun aiming to his father. The assassin's portrait. She was the one to blame, not him. She was the cheater, she was the reason why Bart was coming to the Ball. If Chuck had called him for another reason, not matter how important to him, he wouldn't have come. Bart died in his limo not because of his son, but her wife.

After all, Bart loved her. He had taken the last step after years and years of young top models, actresses and socialites.

Bart wanted a solid family and she destroyed it.

Maybe this was the reason why at Eric's words he exploded. They weren't a family anymore. _They_ were, not him, he was alone.

That day was one of the hardest of his whole life. Actually, the hardest.

He had to be surrounded of people who didn't stop telling him how much Bart loved him, how much they would miss him when a few of them actually knew Bart enough to say those things.

He had to be in the front row, feeling the glances from his friends and "family", and looking to the coffin of his father. A father who Chuck would not see again.

Until that moment he hadn't thought about it, but there was no Bart anymore. He was gone.

Chuck had no father, no role model, someone who would be proud of him or ashamed, someone who will scoff at his bad behaviour, who will pat his shoulder when he did the right thing.

Chuck had always complained about his scrutinizing stare, but now that he was gone, Chuck was lost.

In the middle of the ocean.

His brain might have disconnected because he didn't remember what was said in the church or the moment his father was buried. Next thing he did was been brought to his penthouse.

His penthouse. As his friends referred: the Van der Basses'.

When his feet entered the lobby his heart constricted. Bart and Lily wanted to mix their broken families and turn it into a real one. It didn't last long.

Blair and Nate could sense how uncomfortable Chuck felt, so Blair proposed to go to a calmer room and just wait until all the people went away. Chuck's only response was grabbing a drink and disappearing upstairs.

Chuck wanted to keep his mind out of the situation so he thought looking to the bright side of death would be the best to do. Chuck went to his father's office and searched for his will.

While he was revolving the drawers he felt someone behind him.

Lily's heart hurt seeing Chuck like that. She understood why he didn't want her next to him, but her maternal instincts told her to be near him in a moment like that.

Last few months she had been more attached to Chuck and he had become one of her children. The fact that she understood him maybe was the reason. Parents who didn't show you how much they care were common in both their lives.

Chuck acknowledged her presence and made his statement. She should not worry about him anymore, when he received his part of the will she wouldn't see him again. With that said he just left the room.

That penthouse made Chuck claustrophobic. He went downstairs, grabbed his coat and called his limo.

Blair saw as Chuck took the elevator and went outside. She was tired of this. If he wanted to run away then he would have to make to the idea Blair would not leave him doing that, at least if it wasn't with her.

She wanted to stand by him through anything, good or bad. She loved him and she knew he loved her too. They couldn't say it but both knew it was true.

Blair caught him in the sidewalk as he was to go into his limo.

She said it.

She told him she wasn't going to leave him alone due to the most selfless reason. She loved him and she couldn't stand seeing him hurting. Whatever he wanted to do she would be next to him.

The problem was Chuck didn't want her next to him and that broke her heart.

Chuck went away and Blair came back home. They both drowned their sorrows, in different ways.

As Blair celebrated her mother and Cyrus' wedding and tried to forget about a certain Bass, Dorota approached to her and told Blair to went upstairs quickly. She was confused about her words but she hoped desperately she would find someone up there.

Chuck had hurt her with his words or his absence of words. Blair wanted to stay mad at him but when she entered her room and found him... his face said it was not the moment for a battle.

They had known each other all their lives, but she had never seen him like that.

Who would say Chuck Bass would cry the loss of his father? Nobody.

And nobody would think about it because he had made the effort to not show it to anyone until then. To no one, but her.

Blair would never forget that image.

She ran towards Chuck and embraced him tightly. At first he didn't move. She could hear how Chuck tried to control his breathing even when a few sobs escaped his lips. When his hands held softly but firmly to her arms she couldn't help but left a few tears fall down her cheeks.

Slowly, Chuck calmed. Maybe it was because he had released how he felt that day or the soothing words Blair whispered to him during their embrace.

Finally he left from her arms. Chuck sat a bit straighter on her bed and looked to the floor ashamed for his emotional outburst as Blair stared at him not knowing what to say.

Blair reached to touch his hand and that made Chuck glance at their joined hands. He ran softly his thumbs to his knuckles and left a sigh.

They stayed like that for a few minutes, Blair enjoying the feeling of Chuck's warm skin in her hand. That was one of the most intimate moments they had shared.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have come. I... should go." His voice was soft but weak. He sounded exhausted.

At his statement, Blair just held more tightly to his hand. She wouldn't let him escape.

"I don't want you to." Her words left her mouth brokenly but firmly.

Chuck looked into her pleading eyes, the first time in days. It felt like years. He just shocked his head. He had to go.

"Please." She didn't ask him a lot, just to stay with her.

When he moved to left, Blair took his other hand and dragged him to the bed with her.

Chuck simply obliged. After all he had no place to go, and he really needed her with him even when he had said the opposite.

He lied atop her silk sheets staring towards the window in front of him. It was late in the evening. He felt Blair's arms embrace him from behind.

Blair watched how Chuck's eyelids fluttered close. He was exhausted. She couldn't imagine when had been the last time he had slept, but that didn't matter anymore. He was with her. Blair would take care of him. She would procure he slept, didn't drink alcohol and ate.

Chuck had dozen off.

Blair tightened her grasp and put her head onto his shoulder. When his hands reached to touch her arms in his sleep, Blair smiled and kissed him softly on the neck.

Hours after, Chuck woke up. It was 2 a.m. Even though the events of the day before, he was in calm. Blair stirred a bit and moved her arms but only to embrace him tighter.

Chuck turned to Blair and faced her.

She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

Their heads were so close that their noses almost touched. As he watched her sleeping with a soft smile upon her face, Chuck moved his arm around her waist and nuzzled her closer to him.

The sweet smell of her hair, her warm and silky skin... She was too much for him, so much he didn't deserve her. He was a waist of time. Why stay here when he could avoid her suffering. Blair deserved better, someone who would make her happy, not sad. Chuck didn't remember the last time she smiled, a beautiful true smile. Since he started that mess.

It had been a moment of weakness. Blair would hate him for running away but he did hope that once he saw her happy and glow she would forgave him. That was all he would need.

Her smile and time. Because it would be hard to say to his heart to bury his feelings for her.

Blair Waldorf was known to manage the impossible.

He had known that for a long time. She had managed to make him feel he had a heart.

She had conquest his heart.

He loved her.

He would always love her.

**oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

**A/N:** A year or more later I'm back again. Last year I began a fanfic called "Bittersweet Symphony" that I had much in mind but a lot happens in life and I stopped writing. I'm in a fresh start, so this one is a fresh start for that story too, with much more insight and probably better written.

I thought about delete all my old stories but all of them had reviews, alerts,… and I thought that doing it would be like saying "thank you for your review but I don't give a damn about them" and that is the opposite to what I feel, so I didn't.

I like to know your opinion, good or bad, so reviews are more than welcome. So...


	2. The delusional girl

**Title**: Vanilla Skies.

**Author:** Molize.

**Summary:** Set after 2x15. Chuck leaves to Europe after he loose Bass Industries and Blair dismisses him. He needs help with the way his life has become and find help in old friends. Blair's not as done as she said to Chuck and her life is falling into pieces. Old friends and old enemies sometimes mean the same.

**oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

**Chapter 2. The delusional girl.**

Blair's hands grabbed the lapels of his jacket as if she knew Chuck would go away.

Chuck took her hands in his and rubbed her knuckles softly enough to not wake her but necessary to make her lose her hold. He left her hands on the space between them.

He got up from the mattress and saw the bed cover discarded at her feet. Chuck took it and wrapped her body cautiously.

After that, he stood in front of her for a few minutes not knowing what to do. He thought that at least a few words were necessary before going away.

Chuck went to her bureau and took paper and pen. He wanted to say something, that he needed to go, that he didn't want her to be worried or saddened…

_I'm sorry for everything._

_You deserve much better,_

_Don't follow me._

_-Chuck_

Words weren't enough to explain what he wanted to say to her, but those had been the most similar to what his mind formulated.

He put the note on the pillow, near to her form; so she would see it once awoken. She would hate him in the morning and probably years after.

Chuck bended to her and kiss her forehead. It was a kiss of goodbye. He didn't know when he would come back but it was a good bye nonetheless.

He closed her bedroom door behind him and went out of the Waldorf residence. With that he closed his heart and threw the key away.

**oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

Where did he go? Thailand.

He planned the destination but everything which continued his adventure was a blur. Exactly his point. He didn't want to feel. He didn't want to miss Blair, his friends, his father or New York.

His intentions were clear. He needed to recover the life he once had had. He needed to be _that_ Chuck Bass.

A Chuck Bass that just lived his life with no fear of the consequences.

A Chuck Bass with no heart or feelings, because all that had made him loose control.

He drank, smoked, consumed drugs… everything required for a proper brainwash.

It didn't work.

When you lose the battle against the heart you can't amend it.

He was weak as his father told him once.

He lost and he missed them all, Chuck missed her.

Then, _he_ came. Maybe it was the drugs, maybe the sensation that there was someone else in his family, but he accepted to come back to NYC.

_For what? A trap_.

His beloved uncle, Jack Bass, who lived in Australia and Chuck hadn't seen in years came back to support his beloved nephew. It was like a bad cheesy film. However, it didn't end in a good way.

The first days had been hell.

Obviously, his trip to Bangkok hadn't been the healthiest one that a seventeen years old teenager could go to.

Jack hadn't waited to get Chuck a little bit cleaner. He almost sent him to New York as he had found him.

Actually, he sent him as he had found him.

That way, everyone could see what a mess the young Bass had turned into after the death of his father.

Blair was the first to acknowledge it.

**oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

Blair's morning had begun as it had done lately. She woke up at seven o'clock, had a shower, put on her school uniform, made her hair, applied her make up, went downstairs to have breakfast (just yoghurt, her stomach didn't tolerate any more) and when she sat again at her vanity to apply her lip-gloss she watched firmly her reflection at the mirror and commanded to herself not to waste another tear for his absence.

Chuck had disappeared the 9th of December, the night after his father's funeral.

Blair had awoken in her bed late in the night. When she reached to embrace Chuck, the spot where he had lied was empty and cold.

Her heart started to hammer on her chest as panic increased. She wanted to believe he was in the bathroom or something like that, but the coldness in the bed told her Chuck had gone away long ago.

During the study of her surroundings in search of some sign that would tell her he was still in her house, her eyes landed in the pillow near her.

There was a note.

She took it and lit her night lamp. At first sight she knew it was his. His writing was unmistakeable.

As she read it her eyes watered and then she was chocking in her breath. There were few words in that note but enough to make her frantic. If in a day alone in his suite Chuck wasted himself, what would he do in God-knows-where for God-knows-how-long?

Blair searched her phone and called Chuck. He wouldn't have taken her call but at least she tried. To her surprise, something begun to vibrate in the opposite nightstand.

His phone.

Chuck had never left without his phone, and that worried her even more.

With trembling hands Blair took the device and searched for his last call. Arthur, his driver.

Next call she did was to said driver. "Mr. Bass told me to get him to the JFK, he didn't want to tell where he was travelling. He just wanted to take a commercial flight".

With that, she grabbed their phones and a coat, took a cab at 4 a.m. and went to the Van der Bass' residence.

Blair didn't think that probably all the family must have been sleeping due to the late hour of her arrival. Even though, when she entered the lobby she was greeted by Eric.

Eric had been awoken all night. Chuck's words about how he was not part of their family had hurt him.

For great part of his life Eric had been the only man at his family, so to the announcement of her mother's weeding to Bart Bass he had been truly happy. Bart was not like other men her mother had married, and there was Chuck. Since they had moved in together he had become his brother. It had surprised him how a person could be so different when he was with his family and friends indoors and outdoors.

Those thoughts made Eric impossible to sleep so he went to the kitchen to pour a glass of milk.

"Blair? What are you doing here?" Eric asked when he spotted Blair. "It's…" He looked at the kitchen clock. "… past four in the morning."

Blair tried to articulate word, but it didn't come. It seemed Eric had caught her distress, so he interrupted her tries and approached to her.

"Blair, what's wrong? Is…" Eric didn't want to end his question because he feared for her answer. "Is it Chuck?"

Blair downed her head and simply nodded, for the thousandth time that day her tears threatened to fall.

"B…" Another voice came from behind. This time it was Serena. She was descending the stairs towards the duo. She had heart their murmurs and had left her room.

At the sound of her voice Blair turned her face towards her, and that was enough to the blonde to rush towards her best friend and put her arms around her form.

"B… what happened?" Serena backed trying to see Blair's face, but all what the brunette did was shake her head.

"It's Chuck." Eric responded for her.

"Chuck? What did he do?" Blair couldn't answer her question, she just embraced Serena tightly.

Serena tried to calm her so she sat with her in a couch in the living room. Blair wasn't one of those persons who needed at 4 a.m. the comfort of her friends. In all the years they had known each other, she always had kept her problems to the next morning, in the worst cases she made a call.

That night Blair had come, wearing the same dress as in her mother's wedding and unable to form a coherent sentence.

Serena knew that was something important.

They sat together in the couch in silence for a few minutes, their hands interlaced as Eric was seated in front of them.

Their silence broke when another female voice echoed in the living room.

"Why are all the lights turned on?" It was Lily. Serena and Eric turned to face her, and Lily acknowledged the other person in the room.

Slowly, Lily sat next to Blair, leaving her between Serena and herself. Lily graced sweetly Blair's chocolate curls encouraging her to talk. She could say for who Blair was there, but not exactly why.

"Chuck has disappeared." Blair stated.

"What do you mean? Have you looked at his suite at the Palace, or at the bar, or…" Serena began to say but was cut by her mother.

"Serena, please, let her continue." The silence began to build and once again it was Blair's turn to talk.

"He's gone, Serena." Her breath itched. "He took a flight."

"How do you know? Chuck told you? You left him go?" Eric questioned, it was obvious how worried her words had turned him.

"No… He left his phone in my bedroom; his last call was to Arthur." Tears streamed down her face as she turned to Lily. "He went to the airport."

"Do you have any idea where could he have gone?" Lily asked as she took in her hand one of Blair's.

Blair denied with her head in response. "He left me a note…" Her sobs now had become more nervous. "He left me a fucking note! He doesn't want that we found him. He doesn't want that _I_ found him." Lily couldn't take it anymore. She took Blair in her arms and embraced her.

"It's okay… shhh." Lily's eyes looked at her children's and she could see their preoccupation towards their _brother_. They had spent little time together as a family but enough to feel that way for Chuck.

"We will found him." Lily assured all of them. "You'll see. He will come home soon."

Blair had never cried so much in all her life. The first week after Chuck had run away had been awful.

Blair had cried when at the age of six her favourite dress (a Waldorf original) had been ruined with mud, when her parents split up, when she had discovered that Nate had cheated on her with her best friend, when she discovered that Nate didn't love her, when she thought she might have been pregnant, when she had been dethroned as queen, when Chuck had left her alone in the helipad, when Chuck was unable to say he loved her, when she was told that Chuck had lost his father.

The list was never-ending, even when she was considered a cold girl.

But that week had been the worst time.

For her mother was in her honeymoon with Cyrus, she had been living with the Van der Woodsens. She didn't want to be alone in her house or far away from Lily while she tried to found information about Chuck's whereabouts.

But there was another reason.

Every night she had spent in that house, she scurried silently from the guest room she slept to enter to _his_ room. She always was careful as Serena slept in the room next door.

Every night she lied in his bed, a bed that still smelled like him, and analyzed everything from there. The decoration of his room, his forgotten scarf, and the one thing she was sure he watched before sleep, because even her wasn't capable of leaving her eyes from.

There, in his night stand was a photograph of his mother.

_Evelyn Misty Bass_.

She had never met her. Even Chuck had never met her.

However, she knew she was an amazing woman. She must have been because nothing less than that could have conquered Bart Bass' heart, making him reticent to be nearer his son as he was her live image.

Same eyes, same ivory skin, same serenity.

That week had been the worst, but no better than the weeks after.

Blair made sure that people couldn't see what she felt. She put on her mask. She came back to her house.

Christmas came. No news.

New Year's Eve came. No news.

First day of school after holydays. Nothing.

She loved him.

He broke her heart.

She hated him.

The 7th January, as she read (like every single day) the note he had written to her the night he left, which she kept hidden in one of the drawers of her vanity, she received a text message.

It was from Serena.

They had found Chuck. It seemed that his uncle, an uncle she didn't know he had, had found him in Thailand. They had arrived that morning and were going to the Palace.

A minute after reading the text, she was heading to the Palace.

She hated him. At least that was what Blair said to herself.

Poor delusional girl.


	3. The prodigal son

**Title**: Vanilla Skies.

**Author:** Molize

**Summary:** Set after 2x15. Chuck leaves to Europe after he loose Bass Industries and Blair dismisses him. He needs help with the way his life has become and find help in old friends. Blair's not as done as she said to Chuck and her life is falling into pieces. Old friends and old enemies sometimes mean the same.

**oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

**Chapter 3. The prodigal son.**

Blair arrived just in time.

A few meters to arrive to the doors of the Palace hotel she saw a limousine parking in front of the building.

She stopped in her tracks as her heart did too.

The door opened.

She took a breath to compose herself before saying a few things to the awaited Bass.

The one who left the vehicle was not the member of the family she expected.

The man she saw was obviously his uncle. Tall, fair complexion, hard features, cold blue eyes. He was as she imagined Bart Bass would have been in his young days.

Jack stepped out of the limo to the sidewalk and glanced longingly to the building in front of him. _The Palace_.

It had been years since he had walked through Manhattan and could take a look to the Bass' Empire emblem.

From the corner of his eyes he saw a female figure staring directly to him. He turned to the girl and smirked. "Anything you like, beautiful?"

At his words Blair scoffed. It seemed some of Chuck's ways were genetics not environmental. However she walked towards the man. "I'm Blair Waldorf."

He stared at her and lifted a brow. "That's supposed to mean something to me?"

Blair had met him for two minutes and she just abhorred him.

"I guess you're Chuck's uncle. I'm a friend of him." Blair was getting impatient. Her intentions were to see Chuck, not to have small talk with his uncle.

"Oh." He said wide eyed, now understanding the situation. "So, a friend of him, uh?" He asked incredulously.

"Yeah, that's exactly what I said." Blair said sternly.

"Well, you were right. I'm Jack Bass, Chuck's uncle." Jack extended her hand towards her, but her gaze was fixed on the car.

"I want to talk to him."

"Talk? I'm worried that would be not very possible." Jack walked again towards the open door of the limo as Blair stared at his back confused from his words.

"Nephew mine, on est arrivé!" He exclaimed looking inside of the car. Jack left a frustrated sigh and turned towards the butler. "Hey, you! I need some help." He ordered seriously.

Blair walked to the limo. The next sight made her stomach turn into knots.

Carried by his uncle and the butler, it appeared an unconscious Chuck Bass.

Suddenly, the words she had wished to spat to him were forgotten.

"Tell his teachers he will take a personal day." Jack told her as they entered the lobby of the hotel.

At that, Blair just nodded absently.

For long minutes she stayed like that on the sidewalk. Then she decided to continue her way to Constance.

**oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

A few hours after, Chuck walked again through St. Jude's gates. The only difference: he had showered and dressed with something similar to his school uniform.

That and he had regained some consciousness.

Chuck had arrived in the middle of class time so he went to the courtyard, sat there and searched a joint in the pocket of his coat.

Blair was going through the halls to her next class. She hadn't felt very well after her brief encounter with Chuck or what it seemed his corpse, so she decided to take a detour before going to school and went to Central Park to clear her mind. That was the reason why she had skipped first and second period.

Yeah. Chuck Bass not only had managed to break her heart but also her immaculate attendance expedient.

She passed by the door which leaded to the courtyard. She saw him.

Chuck was seated on a table, his feet resting on the bench beneath. He was bended towards, with his elbows on his knees, one hand over his face the other holding what he was smoking.

He looked at nothing and seemed defeated. His hair, that was longer than she remembered, was dishevelled like he had only passed his hand through it in order to comb it. He looked thinner and pale.

Blair couldn't believe he had come back to school a few hours after his arrival when he had disappeared for a month. A pair of days more wouldn't have killed him, at least he would have looked better than at that moment.

"What the hell do you think you are doing here?" Blair asked infuriated as she tried to dissipate the smoke he had blown in front of him. "Dou you want to be expelled?"

Her words made him focus his eyes towards her as he lifted his joint to his mouth once again.

His stare was empty.

Blair responded to his reaction extracting the joint from his grasp.

Chuck just sighed. "Look, if you want to try it just ask."

Blair ignored his comment. "What are you doing here, Chuck? You should be in bed… or at the hospital." She continued lighting off whatever he had been smoking.

Chuck laughed humourlessly. "Actually, I don't know. Last I remember is being dragged here."

"Your uncle told you to come?" She asked incredulously. Jack had told her to tell his teachers he wasn't coming that day to school, so why he would send him when he had said that?

"Maybe." Chuck lied on top of the table, turning his head to the opposite direction. He felt as Blair seated in the bench near where his head rested on the table and stared at him. "Shouldn't you be in class?" He asked not looking at Blair.

"Shouldn't you?" Blair retorted.

"Touché."

"It's been a month, Chuck. A month without word from you." Blair grabbed his face and turned it around so he could stare at her. "You could have been death and we would never know."

"What a shame, uh?"

She looked at him dumbfounded. Her hand left his skin as he had burned her. "How could you say that?" Her voice almost broke at her question.

Chuck just shrugged and sat up. "I need a drink." He mumbled as he searched another joint in his coat.

Just when he was leaving to the door that led to the corridor, Blair grabbed him from his arm. "A drink?"

"Yeah."

"What did happen to you, Chuck?" This time his eyes locked to hers, they were cold and hard.

"Nothing did happened." Chuck responded nonchalantly.

"This is not you." Blair looked at his eyes searching for something.

"_This_ is me."

"Really? Because I've known you since we were ten. I've seen you drunk, high, disappearing for a _few days_." Blair needed to take a breath or she would collapse. "I've never seen you drunk or high _in school_, you've never disappeared _for a month_, you've never come back home like _this_."

"Perhaps you don't know me well enough." He was exhausted. How many times he had tried to push her away? Countless.

As silence wrapped them, Mrs Queller appeared in the courtyard. "Charles Bass?" She was surprised to the presence of the young Bass at school. Even though that didn't quit the fact that two students were skipping class.

"Mrs Queller, I was trying to convince Charles to go home, he's clearly not prepared to come back so soon." Blair said with an apologetically face.

"No need to lie. I just wanted to smoke." And with that, Chuck disarmed her excuse. "And by the way, it's Chuck for you".

"Chuck!" Blair hissed.

"It's that marihuana?" Mrs Queller inquired focusing on the joint Chuck had in his right hand.

"Hash, actually. I find it softer."

Chuck wanted trouble, it was an understatement. Blair could see it in his face. His expression was like the one he many times had showed to her when they plotted together.

The reason at that moment in school for that expression was totally different.

"Ms Waldorf, go to class."

"But, Mrs…" Blair had to talk to her or Chuck's future in St Jude's would be in jeopardy.

"I think I am more than capable to convince him to go home. Thank you Ms Waldorf." Blair was left at that spot seeing how the other two figures went to direction.

After last period, the news had been announced.

Charles Bartholomew Bass had been expelled _indefinitely_ from prep school.

If Chuck wanted trouble, he had found them. Being expelled from prep school just a few months before the end of senior year was really bad.

Chuck Bass never had been a brilliant student at St Jude's, his marks explained it. But his low marks were not like that because he was stupid. He didn't give importance to his studies.

If you asked his friends, they wouldn't remember a single exam he had failed neither a single one with an A.

His reasons were simple. Why work hard when your future was assured?

With his name the Ivy League was at the palm of his hand.

Until now.

With his name money was granted, but with it, it came his behaviour.

Last years his father had been the responsible to mask his indiscretions. Lately, his behaviour had surprisingly stayed at bay. It was a surprise to everyone, but he knew well, it had to do with a certain girl.

That day, Chuck had crossed the line. Not only he had smoked drugs before the head of his school but he had insulted the institution which would determinate his professional future.

**oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**


	4. Consecuences

**Title**: Vanilla Skies.

**Author:** Molize.

**Summary:** Set after 2x15. Chuck leaves to Europe after he loose Bass Industries and Blair dismisses him. He needs help with the way his life has become and find help in old friends. Blair's not as done as she said to Chuck and her life is falling into pieces. Old friends and old enemies sometimes mean the same.

**OOoOoOoOoOoOoOo**

**Chapter 4. Consequences.**

That afternoon, Blair was walking with Serena to the Van der Basses' penthouse.

"So, it's true Chuck has been expelled?" Serena asked Blair.

"Yeah." Blair sighed. "I talked after class with Queller but she has made up her mind."

She had really made up her mind; because an hour talking to her hadn't changed her opinion about her decision at all.

"It's not fair. Headmistress Queller knows perfectly what Chuck has been through this past month and knowing how Chuck has been all his life he could have returned much worse and make a spectacle in front of everyone. I know it sounds irresponsible but, for God's sake, he just smoked a joint of hash in front of you two!" Serena explained her view without taking a breath.

If Blair could analyse this situation coldly she would be pretty amused for the fact that Serena was defending Chuck for something he shouldn't have done. However, Blair knew Serena was right.

Chuck had always being the experimental one of their Non-Judgemental Breakfast Club, as Blair and Serena had named them when they were younger. He had been the first one to do what every teenage life implied and other things not as early teenager like: smoke, drink, get high or drunk, sleep with someone,… even take drugs. Never the hard ones, of course. At least in their presence.

"Maybe he had more than _a joint of hash_…" Blair mumbled after a few moments of silence.

Serena stopped in her tracks and tried to read what Blair wanted to told her with her remarked words. At her inquiring look, Blair focused her eyes on the concrete.

They were a few meters from the Palace. For this conversation was too serious to take place outdoors, Serena grabbed Blair from her forearm and dragged her quickly to her room at her penthouse.

On their way up there, they didn't exchange words. Blair just stared to the empty space as Serena tapped nervously the floor with her heels.

The penthouse was empty, but Serena didn't want to take the risk of an encounter with her mother and even worse, with Eric, with that matter at hand.

Serena closed the door of her bedroom and Blair just stayed at the middle of it not knowing if it was a good idea to tell Serena about her conversation with Headmistress Queller.

"What?" Serena asked softly with an incredulous tone. She had been wondering all the way to her place what Blair had implied with her words, but sadly every guess that passed by her mind was worse than the one before.

"What _what_?" It was obvious what Serena wanted to know but Blair didn't know how to begin.

"What do you mean that Chuck had more than _a joint of hash_? Tell me he had _two_."

"You know that I'm not referring to the amount, Serena." Blair answered her not staring at her eyes.

"He tried harder things in Thailand?"

"Well, not only there." Blair sing-songed sadly as she sat in the bed.

After a few seconds, Serena sat by her side and take hold of her hand.

"Hey." Serena said sweetly caressing Blair's cheek. At that, Blair folded her hands in her lap and looked at them. Obviously, it was not a day of eye contact.

"I'm fine, he's the one who's not fine." Blair wanted to sound blatant but it didn't work.

Blair wasn't fine, Serena did know that, but she didn't want to press the matter to her best friend. She had spent a horrible month wondering where Chuck was, and more important, how was he. Even when Blair made the effort to convince everyone that the only feeling she felt towards Chuck was hate for leaving her, Serena knew better.

"What told you Queller?" Serena asked.

"After I was dismissed and I went to class, Headmistress Queller led Chuck to her office. She told him that she understood that this was a hard time for him but that didn't implied he could do everything he wanted, at least in school. Then…" Blair sighed. Serena knew she was approaching the point of the question so she squeezed her best friend's hands as a sign that she was still there for her.

"Then Queller told him if he could show her the contents in his pockets. I guess she expected a few more joints, Queller is not an expert but…" Blair looked at Serena's eyes. "She saw a few needles and…" Serena's eyes widened. "… heroin, Serena, she thought that saw heroin."

Blair saw the look of horror in Serena's face. Probably it was the same look she gave to Headmistress Queller when she told her about what she had found out.

Serena blinked a few times as she had to awake from a bad dream.

"Ok." Serena made eye contact again with Blair. "I still don't understand." Serena didn't have to explain herself but she did anyway. "The last thing Chuck needs at this time is being expelled and to let him do what he is doing to himself."

"Chuck said if he couldn't do whatever he wanted in a school his family almost had sustained since he entered, he had nothing to do there anymore." Blair brought her hands to her face. "Serena, she had no other option than to expel Chuck."

"What happened to him, Blair?" Serena asked. It was almost a rhetorical question.

"I don't know." Blair responded. "I don't know him anymore. I feel like I never have known him at all." She said in a whisper.

"Don't say that." Serena said as she side hugged Blair. "You know him. Probably you are the person who knows him better than himself."

Blair snorted at that even when a sad smile graced her lips. "It's the truth, B." Serena assured her.

"The Chuck I _knew_ was intelligent enough to know the limits of drugs and their consequences." Blair said curtly.

"He's hurting." The easy answer left from Serena's lips.

Blair shocked her head. She knew he was hurting even when he had tried to mask his feelings but, what about her? He couldn't see it? He couldn't see how his sight hurt her? She had expressed her feelings and he had denied his. She had offered her support and he had run away.

"Isn't he supposed to be here?" Blair asked after a while.

"I guess not. Even if he had decided to return home from school he wouldn't have come here." Then Serena added more spitefully. "He is at his uncle's _cares_."

Blair huffed. "Did you ever meet him?" Blair hadn't ever known more family to Chuck than his own father and it was a little stab to her heart that Chuck hadn't mentioned before of his existence. It was silly, but not knowing those details was important to Blair.

"Never. He wasn't at our parent's wedding or even at Bart's funeral. Chuck had never mentioned, Nate didn't know him neither, and my mother have never said a word about him until this morning." Serena responded.

"What did Lily say?" Blair continued with her questionnaire.

"Well, after she couldn't find Chuck by her own ways she decided to call Jack a few days ago and he had called her back this midnight telling her they were on their way to NY. That's all." Serena explained simply.

"So your mother spent three weeks searching with no result and Jack found him after what? Four days?" Blair said unconvinced.

"Two days."

"What?"

"Jack found him after two days."

"How-?" Blair started to formulate the question.

"I have no idea, but I'm afraid to know the answer." Serena said in a really serious tone.

"Serena, you're starting to scare me. There's something you're not telling me?"

"Of course not, B!" Serena exclaimed indignantly. "It's just… I don't know. Like I said I had never knew about Jack existence, but my mother knew and apparently she knew he could find Chuck. So why did she call him just a few days ago? Why was he a last resource when he is family? How could he found Chuck so soon even when my mother had in speed dial all Bad Bart Bass P.I.'s?" She babbled but her questions were interrupted by the buzzing zone of both their mobile phones.

That only meant a Gossip Girl's blast.

**Gossip Girl here. Great news for all you UESers. Our loved/hated Chuck Bass has returned to town. We really missed you, C. No one has seen him at class but that doesn't mean he isn't making a great entrance: all of you are invited to Victrola, (yeah, you heard right), so let's start to prepare yourselves for a memorable night on his account. XOXO Gossip Girl. **

"I can't believe it." Blair sat up and started to take her things.

"Where are you going?"

"Victrola." Blair answered shortly.

"Blair, you know it's no use talk to Chuck right now." Serena tried to convince her.

"Sadly I know, believe me. But it would be even worse trying to talk to him when he had become finally an alcoholic and drug addict thanks to that Jackass." And with that she left to her target.


End file.
